Let The Right One In
by ohyellowbird
Summary: It's the middle of the night, snowing and below freezing when Tate heaves open the window. / Vampire AU


**A/N: **Hey guys! It's 3AM and I'm pretty buzzed and I've decided it's the perfect time to post a new fic. I was going to put it in my drabbles fic, but it's over 1K so I'm giving it its own fic.

Enjoy this random vampire AU!

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><p>It's the middle of the night, snowing and below freezing when Tate heaves open the window.<p>

The streetlamp outside sets the empty street a muddled yellow and the soft glow of the moon has been swallowed up by clouds.

"Violet?" he calls, half-leaning out into the storm, dressed in just a t-shirt and linen pants.

She's there a beat later, perched on the sill in bare feet. Her hair is wind-swept and there are snowflakes on her eyelashes.

"Hi."

He moves back for her to step into the room and brush down her clothes - it's the only outfit he ever sees her wear; a sweater, skirt and tights, all in dirtied shades of gray.

"Aren't you cold?" he wonders, sitting down at the edge of his bed to watch her pad over and close the window.

She smiles, shy, and shakes her head. "No. Are you?"

"A little," he admits, shrugging, patting the place next to him. Violet declines, picks a spot in the center of the rug just out of Tate's reach and bounces anxiously on her toes.

Tate traps his hands beneath his thighs to keep from drawing her to him and gauges the distance between them, loathes it.

He hadn't seen her in two weeks. Where had she been? Why hadn't she taken him with her?

"How's school?" she asks when he pulls a thick blanket around his shoulders.

"Shit."

"What happened?"

His gaze drops to the rug, to her pale feet.

They'd teased Addie again. He'd heard her wailing in the janitor's closet at lunch and taken her home early, out for ice cream. It was the third time this week.

Violet steps closer, her expression careful and soft, but with an undercurrent of something distinctly venomous.

"You can't let them get away with that."

He laughs, but it's humorless, and she leans in to cup his jaw, begging for his eyes.

"I'm serious. We've talked about this..."

They had, for months. There was enough ammunition shut away under his bed to take out King Kong.

He would kill the sick fucks that hurt his sister, pump handfuls of metal into every last name she'd given him, and then he'd race home where Violet would turn him. She'd make him like her and then they'd leave. They'd be free.

Tate exhales and nods, but doesn't meet her gaze until the coolness of her thumb against his chin is gone. He rolls the agitation out of his shoulders and chews the inside of his lip.

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

The truth is out of her mouth before she can think to smother it. She hasn't fed since he'd helped her bury the exterminator in the crawlspace downstairs two weeks back. She'd lost control. She was hoping to surprise him, had sneaked into his room when he was showering, but grew impatient and tried the handle to the bathroom., anxious for that handsome face again.

But when he opened the door, confused, there was blood beading where he'd nicked himself shaving. Like a movie in slow motion, it slipped down the edge of his chin and streaked towards his collar and drew her gaze. Before she could even comprehend it, she was back outside latched onto some guy stepping into a white van.

She hadn't seen him since.

"Come here."

She feigns deliberation, looking from the juncture of his neck and shoulder to the sealed window for a tense moment, but then - because she's fucking weak for this stupid boy - she's there, right behind him, combing through his hair with her fingers, both legs folded down, her shins pressed against his back.

"Are you sure?" she murmurs, one hand curling over his shoulder.

Saliva is pooling under her tongue and her gums begin to ache.

Tate reaches back to grip above her knees and tilts his head to one side. It's a simple gesture but with it something purrs to life within her, something that makes her more animal than girl.

She watches the minute pulsing of his carotid artery and unhinges her jaw.

Her face draws up into a snarl and her canines descend, lengthen into twin points, spires designed to steal.

When she closes her eyes, she can hear the steady thump inside his ribs, can feel each and every flutter.

His blood is singing for her.

She curls inward and presses one palm flat against his chest, against the swell where his heart is hidden, and takes a false breath.

"Wait."

Violet physically stutters, has to clamp down on her lower lip to keep from tearing out his jugular right then.

Tate chuckles under his breath, a nervous kind of laugh, and grins. "Sorry - I just mean, hold on." He leans out of her embrace and quickly scrambles out of his shirt. "Mom'll kill me if I ruin another one."

She laughs right along with him to cloak her desperation and collects him again when his shirt's on the floor, her arm crooking tighter around his middle, holding him to her. He looks good in bare skin, tanned and toned from running track, but right now, she's too preoccupied to swoon.

Again, he fits his ear against his shoulder and again her mouth stretches into a long oval.

"Violet?"

She can tell without looking over that his eyes have slipped closed.

He cups her calves and feels out her unusual cold. "I love you."

If she had a heartbeat it would catch and soar.

She knows.

The crunch of fang into flesh is barely audible over Tate's sharp inhale. He instinctively seizes up in her arms before forcing himself calm and kneading the muscle under her skin encouragingly.

With his whimpered okay, her jaw clamps closed and a slick warmth rushes over her teeth and tongue. It fills her mouth, a tangy copper that tinges her cheeks and lips pink, that fills out her sunken sockets and the brittle feel of her bones, and when he sags submissive, one of her hands finds its way into his hair and knots into a fist, keeping him still, claiming him as she gulps down mouthfuls of his life.

He tastes like all the rest, but somehow it's better. It's consensual and it's _him._

She takes and takes, doesn't stop until the pounding under her palm grows wary.

His grip on her calves slackens and his every breath gets real quiet.

He mumbles her name, rolls his cheek against the sharp end of his clavicle.

He's fading fast.

"Shit!"

She pulls off with a gasp and wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, licks at the mess over her knuckles while shaking him awake like a rag doll.

Tate's eyelids flutter and he looks a bit pale, but he's fine, flashes her a weak smile to say so and falls back against the sheets.

"Sorry," Violet says, shy again, and lays back next to him, the corners of her lips still scarlet, the pink of her tongue swabbing idly at them.

Her body hums with his given life.

He's made her whole, for now, for a little while.

They both stare up into the ceiling, quiet for a few minutes, but when he reaches up to touch the wounds on his neck she catches his hand and turns over onto her side.

He looks over and tells her she looks better, healthier. She smiles and tells him thanks, laces their fingers and holds his hand in the space between their hips.

She stays until dawn creeps up the horizon.

He tells her; tomorrow. He'll kill them tomorrow. And then he'll come home and wait for night, for her. He'll leave the window open and she'll turn him and then they'll leave. They'll be free.

She nods.

They'll be free.

When they kiss he doesn't mind the taste and when they fuck it's sweet and slow.

He falls asleep with her curled around his back and when she leaves she clears the hair away from his forehead and presses a kiss between his brows, breathes an 'I love you' into his lips and disappears.

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><p>But it all goes wrong.<p>

He knows the secret - instead of a life sentence waiting for him when he gets home it'll be eternity.

He kills them. All of them.

And then he waits, sits at the edge of his bed like the night before, runs their time together through his mind to calm the trembling in his hands.

She'll come.

She'll save him.

They'll be free.

The doorbell rings and there are heavy footsteps on the stairs.

His door bursts open and ten men in black suits with big guns file into the room.

When she gets to his house that night the streets are lined with cop cars and there's an ambulance in the driveway with its rear doors open.

His mother is inconsolable on the front steps, utterly devastated, broken.

Everything feels wrong.

Violet watches from the trees, stubbornly disbelieving, and steals through his open window.

But it's not how they planned. He's not there.

His room is empty and the sheets are soaked with blood.

There are scuff marks in the hallway.

She wanders downstairs just in time to see the gurney being loaded up and packed away.

She can smell him. He's inside the zipped up bag.

He's gone.

They won't be together, but at least he'll be free.

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><p><strong>AN: **I know, I know, it doesn't snow in L.A. Shh! Just make believe!

Thanks for reading!


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